Why are many options in gnome-tweak-tool inaccessible?

Question

When I run gnome-tweak-tool, a lot of the options are locked. In particular, I'm talking about the gnome shell theme, and the gnome shell extensions. They all have a "warning" type icon with an exclamation point next to them.

I am not logged in to a unity session or Gnome classic, just regular "Gnome"

Solution

Gnome in the login menu is gnome-shell. You need to have gnome-shell-extensions-common and gnome-shell-user-theme installed. There are a number of ways to do this, one is to use

https://extensions.gnome.org/

to add the different extensions for your GS version. Another way is to add one of the PPAs that are available! such as webupd8's...

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:webupd8team-gnome3/oneiric

editor's note: oneiric is EOL; adding this repository will probably break your system

If your extensions are not loading properly then check that your extension and gnome-shell version are the same :-)

sudo -H gedit /usr/share/gnome-shell/extensions/[email protected]/metadata.json 

and look for shell version. You can edit the extension version to match your own, e.g. 3.2.1.

Comments

[mikewhatever]

...and what do you mean by regular gnome? Is it Gnome 2 or 3? Is it Gnome Shell or Gnome Classic? What version of Ubuntu do you have?

[Sanam Patel]

This may be a duplicate question, see the first answer here: askubuntu.com/questions/72042/…

[Animeartist]

mikewhatever - I mean that the session I chose from the login screen was called "Gnome", not "Gnome Classic". I assume this is gnome3.

[Animeartist]

Tom - that answer was not helpful. When I try to enable the user theme extension, the error is "Unknown extension error". Also, the screenshot you added to my question is inaccurate. The error next to the theme is "user theme extension not enabled".

[Sanam Patel]

Sorry about that. Can you add the new details to your original question please? That makes it easier to follow, and increases your chances of getting a good answer.